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- [00:00]
Ted Cruz
Tweeting while on a family vacation this week, Ted Cruz slammed his critics, claiming that those who hate on him are just sexually frustrated and unable to resist his raw sex appeal. Cruz said that Democrats who are fixated on criticizing him all the time are obviously motivated by their deranged sexual frustrations. They are drawn to him, an alpha male whose powerful presence and distinct sex of a dusty Texas sunrise in September cause his haters to lash out in their unfulfilled desire. Mmm. Ted Cruz this is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [00:48]
Michael Knowles
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- [03:28]
Ted Cruz
Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles. I'm just seeing now that that article was published by the Babylon Bee, though I don't see what about it would be funny in any way. We now know from aoc, among other people that all political criticism is merely grounded in sexual frustration. So, Senator, I think you would be perfectly justified in making those claims.
- [03:53]
Liz Wheeler
You know, I gotta say, Michael, this has gone a little bit viral online and I'm both puzzled and I guess slightly offended that people are finding it so amusing. I'm not really appreciating the comedy aspect to it. You know, the reference to, what is it, the musk of a Texas sunset? I mean, I thought that was required to get elected in the great state of Texas. And listen, I for one find AOC's reasoning compelling. She said everyone who criticized her just wants to date her. And that's obviously the case. And I guess, you know, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And so all of the MSNBC hosts and CNN hosts and Democrats who foam at the mouth are just, you know, hot for teacher. And, you know, they all want to be on this podcast. I guess that's what's going on.
- [04:49]
Ted Cruz
Liz is the only person with two X chromosomes on this show right now. I'm not sure about the cactus. Can you attest to the verity of what AOC has to say?
- [04:58]
Michael Knowles
Listen, this is hilarious, by the way. That Babylon Bee article is just, it's hysterical. I actually texted Seth to see who wrote that particular line that just laid me the mm, Ted Cruz line. Because, Senator, with all due respect, this is the most hilarious thing that's ever been written about you. And like I said, I mean that with all respect. But it's actually more believable. The AOC thing is more believable if it actually were satire. It is hard to comprehend that a sitting member of US Congress made a comment about critics of her policies and said, well, you just have a crush on me. You just wanna date me. Like, are we grownups? Are we adults? Are we really politicians who believe this? It's unbelievable.
- [05:39]
Liz Wheeler
Well, in honor of all the frustrated and angry libs this year, I'm pleased to announce that Verdict will be coming out with a swimsuit calendar. And it's just to help relieve their tens.
- [05:52]
Ted Cruz
Well, I know, I know. We will be having some mailbag questions coming later on. I assume most of them will be kind and polite. Some might be critical. And so I look forward to channeling all of those frustrations, sexual or otherwise.
- [06:07]
Michael Knowles
Absolutely. And anybody who wants to ask a question, we have some great questions today. These might be the best questions yet. Anybody who wants to ask a question of Senator Cruz, Michael Knowles or me can do so on the Verdict plus community. That's Verdict with TedCruz.com Verdict Plus. Just head on over there. I have a post that says, you know the drill, ask the question and it will hopefully be answered on the episode. And we will get to that shortly.
- [06:28]
Ted Cruz
Wonderful. All right, we'll see you very soon. Liz. Senator, I think when a lot of people were listening to AOC's reasoning here, they thought that she sounds a little bit desperate. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. And I can't help but notice that 24 of AOC's Democrat colleagues in the House are not running for reelection. This compared with only 11 House Republicans who are not running for reelection. Are the Democrats afraid of facing an electoral tsunami in 2022?
- [07:00]
Liz Wheeler
Look, I think they're absolutely afraid of it. I would say virtually everyone in Congress expects that the election in November is going to be a red wave. I think it's going to be on the order of magnitude of 2010. I think it's going to be on the order of magnitude of 1994. That in both instances, you had a Democrat president who veered too far to the left. And the American people said, hold on a second. And we saw huge Republican majorities come in. I think we're headed the same direction in 2022.
- [07:29]
Ted Cruz
Now, if the Republicans retake the House, there is the prospect of impeachment. And actually this show, the Verdict podcast, made news and possibly made history this past week because the White House had to respond to something that you said on this podcast. I think it may be the first time the White House has responded to a podcast because on our last episode you said that if the Republicans retake the House, as it looks like they will, they very well might impeach Joe Biden.
- [08:02]
Michael Knowles
Does the White House have a reaction to Senator Cruz saying President Biden may be impeached if the Republicans take that.
- [08:09]
Liz Wheeler
To House next year specifically for the border policies?
- [08:12]
Michael Knowles
Ms. Well, our reaction is maybe Senator.
- [08:15]
Liz Wheeler
Cruz can work with us on getting.
- [08:17]
Michael Knowles
Something done on comprehensive immigration reform and putting in place measures that will help make sure smart security is what we see at the border, taking a more humane approach to the border instead of.
- [08:29]
Liz Wheeler
Name calling, accusation calling and making predictions of the future. Go ahead. Thank you, Jim.
- [08:34]
Ted Cruz
Not much of an answer, if you ask me.
- [08:37]
Liz Wheeler
Well, you know, it's striking on several things. One, you know, she accuses us of name calling. Last I checked, we didn't engage in any name calling. We just observed the reality that if there's a Republican majority in the House, which I think is extremely likely, that there will be very significant pressure and a very significant likelihood that we will see impeachment proceedings. And, you know, it was interesting when she talked about the border, she says, well, we need, quote, smart security and talk about a euphemism. We had 2 million people cross illegally last year. We had the highest rate of illegal immigration in 61 years. She says she wants a more humane policy. How about start with not having children physically and sexually assaulted by human traffickers? How about start by not having women physically and sexually assaulted by human traffickers? How about starting by not having the highest amount of fentanyl and illegal drugs trafficked in this country that we've ever seen in the history of this country. What they're doing, it ain't humane. And you want to work together on this, fine. Let me give you a place to start. Enforce the damn laws.
- [09:45]
Ted Cruz
Of course. Of course, enforce the laws. They have no interest in doing that. This is not just some cheap political shot. They have said they have no interest in doing that. They've reversed a lot of the border security measures. So on this question of impeachment, is this just a purely political partisan threat that now, whenever the other party holds the Congress, they're going to impeach the president, or is there some constitutional legal basis for impeaching Joe Biden?
- [10:13]
Liz Wheeler
Oh, look, a little bit of both. What we said in the last episode of Verdict is That one of the consequences of the Democrats in the last Congress so politicizing impeachment, impeaching Donald Trump not once, but twice, because they disagreed with him, because they hated his policies, and they hated his politics even more. Verdict was launched on the first day of the first impeachment trial. And you and I said during that first trial over and over again when we were down in the basement at 1 in the morning, that if they make this political, if they go after Donald Trump because they hate him, that the inevitable consequence of what the Democrats are doing, abusing the constitutional process of impeachment is the next time you get a Democratic president, the next time you get a Republican House, it's gonna be almost inevitable that they're gonna be forced to impeach him as well. That's not how the Constitution was meant to work. But the Democrats made the decision, damn the torpedoes, they didn't care about the consequences. And you and I said at the time, this is a dangerous road to go down. You shouldn't use impeachment to express political disagreements. But the Democrats did so twice in a partisan charade. We get to January 23rd with a Republican House. I think the political pressure to do the same thing, just apply the same standard to Joe Biden that the Democrats applied to Donald Trump will be enormous. Now, it's interesting, Michael. After the podcast came out last week, the Twitterverse went nuts. MSNBC went nuts. Left wing journalists went nuts. They said, oh, my gosh, this is terrible. This is terrible. And what you and I said when we talked about this last week is I said, there are multiple grounds on which the House could impeach Joe Biden. And it was funny. One of the MSNBC hosts came back and said, there are not multiple grounds. I thought it was amusing that apparently he wasn't disputing there were grounds, just not multiple grounds. And since none of these people actually do reporting or journalism, we can walk through a few of them and actually discuss them. The one I mentioned in the last podcast, the strongest ground is immigration is the President's utter failure and refusal to enforce the immigration laws and to create absolute chaos. And it's not just. It's not just doing a bad job, it's utterly defying the law. And Article 2 of the Constitution gives the President a responsibility to, quote, take care that the laws are faithfully executed. And Joe Biden has decided he's not.
- [13:00]
Ted Cruz
Gonna do that, because during that, the first impeachment trial, when we launched verdict, one of the arguments that the Trump team was making was that maladministration is not a grounds for impeachment. As you say, just doing a bad job is not grounds for impeachment. But you're saying there's a difference here between doing a bad job at enforcing the laws and flagrantly, intentionally, consistently refusing to enforce the law.
- [13:25]
Liz Wheeler
Well, that's right. And this touches on debates. If you go back to early episodes of Verdict, we got into in great detail, which is what does high crimes or misdemeanors mean? The constitutional standard for impeachment, impeaching the president is that he has to be guilty of high crimes or misdemeanors. And there was a robust debate about whether high crimes or misdemeanors constitute federal crimes, crimes that are on the books. And one of the ironies is that all the positions are switched. So when it was Donald Trump, all the Democrats says, no, no, no, no, doesn't need to be a criminal offense. Doesn't need to be a crime at all. Ukraine just cause we don't like what he did on Ukraine. Ukraine bad. So, so impeach the guy. And we pointed out, I think the better argument is that it should be a criminal offense. There's a dispute. And I would note, you know, Justice Joseph Story, who's one of the great early Supreme Court justices, he talked about this and Justice Story said, our fathers adopted a constitution under which official malfeasance and nonfeasance and in some cases, misfeasance may be the subject of impeachment. That's an argument. It's an argument that the Democrats and they're going after Trump, could rely on in the case of the border, it's nonfeasance. It's utterly refusing to follow the law. So that's one ground. But there are at least two other grounds, and there are probably more. The two other grounds on which a Republican House could consider impeachment are the utter and colossal disaster of the Afghanistan withdrawal. The president abandoning Americans behind enemy lines, the president sharing intelligence with the Taliban, the president abandoning Bagram, releasing, including as a result of Biden's abandoning Bagram, releasing the terrorist who became a suicide bomber, murdering 13American servicemen and women. That could easily be considered malfeasance and a ground of impeachment. And a third potential ground of impeachment is the president's lawless vaccine mandates. And what this would turn on. Look, it's one thing to adopt a strained interpretation of the law, but what this would turn on is the extent to which the president's lawyers advised him this is Contrary to law, and we've talked about on this podcast, I believe the Department of Justice and or the White House lawyers told the president and told his senior advisors, you don't have the authority to do this under osha. You don't have the authority to do this. You're gonna be challenged and it will very likely lose in court. And I think he made the decision, essentially, I don't care. I'm gonna abuse my power and do it anyway because a bunch of people are gonna comply. And you could make an argument that, that to the extent and the full factual predicate hasn't been developed, you'd have to lay out that he was acting in open defiance of the law. But if you made out that predicate, that would be a third potential ground for impeachment. None of those, at the end of the day, may be a slam dunk. And if the Democrats had not gone down the road of impeaching Trump twice for political and policy disagreements, then you probably wouldn't see a Republican House respond using the same means. But once they've started this process, we predicted at the outset that this was gonna be a slippery slope. And unfortunately, I think that is where we are today.
- [17:02]
Ted Cruz
And what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And on this point of protections against pure mob rule, which the other political party seems to have been a little reckless about, you are now seeing that with the filibuster. So the filibuster, a protection against majoritarianism, is really, seems to be at the heart of a lot of the debates going on at the Capitol. Build Back. Better Build Back Broke, if you want to call it that. The Biden budget seems dead on arrival as long as Joe Manchin holds firm, which he's doing right now. So many of the Democrat priorities have flopped, and yet it seems that right now Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats are really, really pushing to get rid of the filibuster. One, do you think it's going to happen? Two, what would it mean for the Senate and for the country if it does?
- [17:54]
Liz Wheeler
So I hope that it doesn't. I don't know. The Democrats are under enormous political pressure because Build Back Broke failed. They're putting massive political pressure on Joe Manchin, Democrat from West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat from Arizona. Who are the two people that at least so far have taken down Build Back Broke? And they want to end the filibuster. Now, what is the filibuster? So there are a couple of different kinds of filibusters. One, it used to be the case that it required 60 votes to proceed to a nomination, to proceed to a judicial nomination, to proceed to an executive nomination. The Democrats ended that filibuster when Harry Reid was majority leader. I was in the Senate at the time, and he did what's called the nuclear option, which is he broke the rules of the Senate in order to change the rules of the Senate. He eliminated the filibuster for executive nominations and for judicial nominations, although he carved out judicial nominations except for the Supreme Court. Why did he do that? Because there wasn't a Supreme Court vacancy. Everyone knew if there was a Supreme Court vacancy, they'd immediately nuke it for the Supreme Court. But since there wasn't a vacancy, they only nuked it for judges short of the Supreme Court and executive vacancies. Fast forward to the Trump presidency. Republicans ended it for the Supreme Court as well, applied the same standards to all nominations. The history, actually, of requiring 60 votes for nominations was relatively short. Most of the history of the Senate nominations preceded only requiring 50 votes. So it was actually the reason why you had a filibuster for judicial nominations. You know who invented the filibuster for judges? Chuck Schumer. So when George W. Bush got elected, Chuck Schumer was a rising, ambitious Democrat, and he hatched this plan. He did it actually with Larry Tribe, the Harvard law professor. He said, let's start from filibustering judges. Prior to that, it had never been done. You didn't filibuster judges. That was not. There had never been a partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court justice. The only one who had ever been filibusters was Abe Fortas. And Abe Fortas was not a partisan filibuster. Both Republicans and Democrats participated because it was corruption. That was the basis of it. So the Senate from both sides of the aisle agreed. No, we're not going down this road. But Schumer concocted the plan. Let's start filibustering judges. And if you remember, Bush had a slate of initial judges, and Schumer and the Democrats filibustered them. But think back for a second. Clarence Thomas. One of the most contentious Supreme Court nominations of our lifetimes. Justice Thomas, I think, is a great and extraordinary justice. The Democrats were massively opposed to him. Not a single Democrat. Filibuster Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas was confirmed 52, 48, I believe. He didn't have 60 votes. A single Democrat could have filibustered Clarence Thomas. Ted Kennedy did not filibuster Clarence Thomas. Joe Biden did not filibuster Clarence Thomas because you didn't filibuster judges. Schumer came up with a plan to do it that got ended. Contrast that with the legislative filibuster. The legislative filibuster. For most of the history of the Senate, it has required 60 votes to proceed to legislation. Inevitably, that frustrates the majority. Whoever's in the majority. If they don't have a 60 vote supermajority, they're unhappy that they need to get 60 votes. What it does is it forces compromise, it slows down the legislative process, it forces some modicum of bipartisanship. It doesn't let a narrow majority, and right now the Democrats have the narrowest possible majority, just ram through a partisan agenda. Schumer wants to nuke the filibuster, break the rules, and with a 50, 50 Senate, with the narrowest possible, a partisan agenda. If he gets Manchin and Sinema to give into it, he'll succeed.
- [22:10]
Ted Cruz
So this would be beyond the debates over the budget or the various proposals that have flopped for the Democrats. This would be a big move for them. But it seems to me it's not the biggest news in D.C. this week and it's not the biggest move coming out of the Democrats or the liberal establishment. That would be something that's totally outside of the lawmaking process. Frankly, it's even sort of beyond the White House. That would be the flip flop on coronavirus. Maybe it's just me, call me crazy, but it was. And I did happen to just recover from the coronavirus. So I'm clear now. I'm good. I've made it. Thank you all for your well wishes. Wonderful way to spend Christmas. It would seem that during this period, the White House and the Democrats have done a complete 180 on the virus, on the vaccines, on the lockdowns, on the isolation. What happened?
- [23:00]
Liz Wheeler
Look, it really is stunning. You've seen the CDC shorten the quarantine period. We've seen Dr. Fauci suddenly discover some reasonableness. One of the things that was most striking, Fauci went on TV and he said, well, you know, there are children in the hospital with COVID but many of them are not in the hospital because of COVID And I couldn't help. I literally laughed out loud because there's some of us. You and I have been saying that for a year. And when we said that, we were characterized as tinfoil hat wearing loons and murderers for pointing out. You remember, we've talked about this on the pod There was a very funny meme online that was a fake headline and it was woman eaten by great white shark dies of COVID And it's the same point that some of these statistics of someone who's positive for Covid and even some of the, some of what are called COVID deaths. Look, if there are people who have died because of COVID but there are also people who had other horrible diseases and were dying anyway who also happened to have Covid. And if we were being rational discussing it, we would make that distinction. When you and I made it, cnn, msnbc, the cdc, the Biden White House, they all mocked it. And now suddenly Fauci's saying it. I think some of it is. It's driven by a couple of things. Number one, the Democrats policies on Covid are deeply unpopular. Shutdowns are unpopular. Shutting down schools are unpopular. Mandates are unpopular. They've gotten too far out over the skis.
- [24:39]
Ted Cruz
Well, and you have seen, by the way, even President Biden probably had the biggest flip flop of all. He ran on the idea that he was going to shut down the virus. Now he's saying verbatim, there is no federal solution. This will only be handled at the states, which again, you and I said a year ago or more than a year ago, but, but now that seems to be the official line of the administration.
- [24:59]
Liz Wheeler
Well, and ironically enough, when Trump said it, he was roundly denounced by the corporate media and by Democrats as a horrible, heartless oaf for saying word for word what Biden said. And the irony is, the most significant federal solution, or at least the most significant part of a federal solution, was Operation Warp Speed, which the Trump administration carried out, which was to cut through the red tape and dramatically speed up the development of vaccines. That was a federal process because there was federal red tape in the way of getting the vaccines. But that federal solution, Donald J. Trump implemented, so Biden can't claim credit for it. So at this point, he acknowledged what was obvious. But another part of the flip flop. Look, Omicron maybe, and I hope that it is the beginning of the end. You know, you mentioned you had Covid. I'll note you and I are social distancing by about 800 miles.
- [26:00]
Ted Cruz
We are.
- [26:00]
Liz Wheeler
I think that's. It's. But you know, over the Christmas holidays, it seems like everybody I knew had Covid. I mean, it was just everywhere. But everyone I knew who had it also said it was pretty mild. It was like a mild cold or flu. That this variant seems much more mild than some of the prior variants. And this may well be the beginning of the end in that if everybody, or almost everybody catches it and it's fairly mild, if that's the case, that is often how pandemics peter out. Once you get herd immunity, once you get a large enough percentage of the population that has had it, that immunity, let us hope, and there's some early testing to suggest this is right, we'll be in immunity for other variants as well. Now, the thing could mutate and we could see a new and more dangerous variant. But Omicron, I think part of the COVID gymnastics we're seeing from the Biden White House and the NIH and the CDC are due to the fact that everybody has in there, like, holy crap, we're like, canceling airline flights and shutting down schools. And if everybody has to quarantine for, like, a long time, the entire world shuts down again. And they're realizing that's not feasible. But what's fascinating is that's a political determination, not a medical determination or a scientific determination.
- [27:34]
Ted Cruz
They have admitted this. Rochelle Walensky, head of the CDC, Dr. Fauci, I think the grand poobah of the entire world at this point. They have both said that part of the decision was based on what people could tolerate. So they're explicitly saying this was political. And this raises another strange question, which is some of us, you know, I hate to say we told you so, but some of us had been saying a lot of these things a lot earlier than Joe Biden and Dr. Fauci and Rochelle Walensky. Many of us were censored for that. Episodes of my show over at the Daily Wire have been censored for saying things that now Dr. Fauci and Joe Biden say Joe Rogan, Joe, biggest podcaster in the world. Except for that week when we launched the Verdicts podcast. Joe Rogan has seen some of his episodes censored. Dr. Malone, who is one of the scientists who helped to develop MRNA vaccine technology, who went on Joe Rogan's podcast, who has made other media appearances, has been censored for saying things that plenty of scientists have agreed with. So I guess the question is, who is allowed to say what? And how come different people are permitted to say one thing and other people who say the very same thing will be censored by big tech or others?
- [28:51]
Liz Wheeler
Well, Michael, I gotta start with a fact check, and this is one where I gotta say the fact checkers. PolitiFact would be exactly, exactly right. And what you would said would objectively be misinformation because you just said that you hate to say I told you so, and that just isn't right. You love to say I told you so.
- [29:12]
Ted Cruz
Guilty as charged. You got me. You got me. Absolutely.
- [29:16]
Liz Wheeler
Look, it is utter and ridiculous hypocrisy. It's. Big Tech is so shameless, it would make Orwell blush. You think in 1984, you think we're at war with Eurasia. We've always been at war with Eurasia. And then when the operative facts change, immediately it changes, and they don't blink. They don't. Big Tech would silence anyone who said that the evidence suggested that the virus came from a Chinese lab in Wuhan, and then suddenly, miraculously, oh, wait a second. The evidence shows that the virus came from a Chinese lab in Wuhan, which this podcast said in March of last year. We laid out the evidence. We're one of the first podcast, one of the first media outlets, because the corporate media refused to cover it. So we went in depth in the podcast, laying out the evidence that it escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and what was behind all of that. Now, almost all of that's been, if not fully confirmed publicly, heavily validated publicly is probably the fair way to say it. And magically, I remember you had Fauci asking Mark Zuckerberg, silence anyone who suggests this came from the Wuhan lab. And it is the absolute arrogance of we're going to silence any dissenting views, even if they turn out right. And when they turn out right, they don't say they're sorry. They don't say they shouldn't have been silenced. Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden laptop. The New York Post was blocked by Big Tech for publishing a true story. True, but damaging to the Democrats. And we're seeing this over and over again. You know, the idea that they blocked Rogan's latest podcast with one of the inventors of the technology that was used for the vaccine, that's insane. If you disagree with what the doctor says, disagree with it. But to step in as Big Brother censors, it's just. It's a level of hubris that's really staggering.
- [31:36]
Ted Cruz
This does. Before we get to the mailbag, this does raise, I guess, what happens next type question in D.C. which is now that the facts of COVID and the lockdowns and the vaccines seem to be changing, or at least the narrative around them is changing, you're seeing, for instance, a judge granting a stay against the vaccine mandate for some Navy Seals. Just use one. One example. Do you think that the changing narratives on vaccine efficacy, on the virus, on the effectiveness of the lockdowns. Do you think that is going to have any effect on these outcomes in the court cases? Are the seals going to be able to avoid taking the fauci ouchie on the SEALs case?
- [32:16]
Liz Wheeler
I actually am involved in that case. So I led a group of nine senators and 38 House members, and we filed an amicus brief supporting the Navy SEALs in the federal district court and urging the federal district court to step in and stop. Joe Biden is trying to fire Navy seals. These are heroes who've gone through incredible training. Look, Michael, you and I couldn't last 20 minutes in Bud's training. We might not be able to last two minutes in Bud's training. These guys are heroic warriors, and Biden just wants to fire them because they won't submit to his illegal vaccine mandate. And so a federal district court in Texas issued a stay preventing them from being fired. The next step is we'll see an appeal in the Fifth Circuit of that stay. It will depend to some extent on if there's a good panel in the 5th Circuit. But the 5th Circuit as a whole has been excellent on the mandate litigation. So I have a decent level of optimism that stay will be upheld on appeal. But I think that is a big win that we saw this week in the Navy Seals litigation.
- [33:30]
Ted Cruz
And the legislature can take this up, too. Worth pointing out that you are introducing legislation at least focused on mandates within D.C. now, it's D.C. obviously, is its own federal district, but the Congress and the Senate have some control over that. And it seems probably the mayor would push back against some of the control that the Senate has. So what is the likelihood that this is going to have an effect?
- [33:58]
Liz Wheeler
Yeah. So what has happened is that the D.C. city Council has passed an ordinance requiring school children to be vaccinated and forcing school children to be vaccinated regardless of what their parents want. I think that's a total abuse of power, that it ought to be up to parents whether or not your kids get vaccinated. And each parent can make that decision, can talk with your doctor and make the decision. But the local school board has no right to force you to vaccinate your five year old. Of course, D.C. being D.C. being a bunch of Democrats, they are authoritarians. They are the party of mandates. To hell with the science, to hell with reason, to hell with your rights, to hell with your body, your choice. We're going to force you to do it. So DC Is unlike any city in the United States of America in that D.C. is explicitly in the Constitution given to Congress. Congress actually has plenary authority. Plenary is a fancy legal word for blanket authority over D.C. congress is actually in charge of D.C. now, we've passed a bill called the Home Rule act that allows for a mayor and a city council, but that's delegated authority. The authority all remains with Congress because that's how the Constitution is written. The Home Rule act explicitly provides that when the city council passes an ordinance that a member of Congress can introduce a resolution of disapproval to essentially overturn that ordinance. So that's what I've done is I've filed a resolution of disapproval to overturn the D.C. city Council's vaccine mandate for school children. And we'll see. I expect there will be battles in the Senate that Chuck Schumer and the Democrats will not want to vote on my resolution of disapproval. But we'll see if we can get a vote on it or not. And I'm gonna be fighting to get a vote and get every Democrat in the Senate on record. Do you support forcing parents to vaccinate their five year old, whether or not that parent wants to do so? Because I think that is a really abusive position and we ought to get every Senate Democrat on record on that.
- [36:09]
Ted Cruz
Well, you're hearing a lot of parents talking about this at school boards and we should hear, by the way, from some of our listeners in the Verdict mailbag. So shall we bring back our friend Liz for some Mailbag questions?
- [36:20]
Michael Knowles
Thanks, Michael. We have, as I mentioned earlier, we have some great questions. Before we get to the questions though, I want to give everybody an update on our viewer led special anniversary episode that's coming up this month. We are about to get to the two year anniversary of our inaugural episode on verdict. That'll be January 21st. And we in December for the hundredth episode, we announced giveaways as well as viewer led challenges or polls if you will. And I want to give a little update on that. So we said if we reach 15,000 members on the Verdict community by January 15th, I believe, or January 21st, that's the inaugural episode anniversary, 15,000 members on the Verdict community. Then we will select, we will randomly select one of our verdict VIPs, one of our subscribers to come to a live taping of Verdict when we are at a college campus. Well, we started out at about 8,000 members. We are all the way up to 12,000 members on verdict. So we're almost there. This is a benchmark that we can hit. You still have time Go to verdict with TedCruise.com/ Become a member. It's free to become a member and you might just be the winner. You might just be the recipient of a trip to a live taping of Verdict if, if you join in time. That's the first thing. The second thing is on YouTube, on episode 100 on YouTube on the Verdict channel, we will be randomly selecting 15 people who leave a comment. You must leave a comment. We will be randomly selecting 15 people and those 15 people will be the lucky winners of a box of signed Verdict merch from our merch store. We're talking T shirts, we're talking that sweet cactus hat, we're talking stickers for the back of your laptop if you leave a comment on episode 100 on YouTube. So head on over there and leave that comment if you want signed merch. If you don't do it anyway, leave a comment. And then third and finally on Apple, on the podcast app on Apple, we said if we get to 50,000 reviews on Apple Podcasts by January 21st, then we will let you, the fans, pick what we do in one episode next year. So this is the idea of real truth Cactus. I think this is a fabulous idea. And so what I mean when I say we will let you pick what we do, we will have a poll. Once we have gotten to 50,000 reviews on Apple podcasts, we will have a poll on the Verdict community and the poll will ask you, would you rather see the senator wear a Braves jersey for an entire episode? See the senator and Michael arm wrestle, bring the cactus to make a guest appearance on the show or to hear Michael roast Princeton and the senator roast Yale in a throwdown episode? Now we've come a good ways on this one. We are at 38,000 ratings and counting on Apple podcasts. So you gotta get over there and give us a good five star rating, a glowing review so that we hit this benchmark. Because I don't know about you, but I would like to see an arm wrestling match. And we have just a few more days until we are at the deadline. So just a little update on our giveaway on our special two year anniversary coming up. And because I control the questions, Senator, because I'm the gateway to these questions, I'm gonna throw a question for myself in here before we get to the rest of these questions. My question is, have you been following the Elizabeth Holmes trial and you know, Theranos? This is the biggest fraud, I think that's been perpetuated, the biggest medical fraud that's Been perpetuated in at least my lifetime, as long as I can remember. She's been on trial for dozens or over a dozen counts, defrauding investors and patients, and she was found guilty of about half of them, not guilty on a few. And the jury could not come to a conclusion. They were deadlocked on several of those counts. As a lawyer, as an attorney yourself, what do you make of this?
- [40:01]
Liz Wheeler
Yeah, no, it's been stunning. I'm going to get to your question. Let me first of all say that if the arm wrestling is what the verdict viewers select, Michael can't alter that and make it thumb wrestling. It's got to be real and throw down with an absolute result.
- [40:23]
Ted Cruz
This is what you go up against a Harvard trained lawyer and all your tricks go out the window. All right, fair enough.
- [40:31]
Liz Wheeler
So, yeah, look, the Elizabeth Holmes verdict and the trial and the whole scandal is astonishing. You look at Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, she seems like a character invented in Hollywood with a husky voice and the black turtlenecks and the obsession with Steve Jobs that she wanted to be Steve Jobs in a way that. That, frankly, is a little Glenn Close, boil your rabbit in a pot, obsessive. But you look at the Theranos, you know, it became a billion dollar company. It raised money from all over the place. It brought in, you know, a blue chip board and board of advisors, including, you know, Henry Kissinger, including George Shultz. I mean, it was an incredible pantheon. Jim Mattis, former Secretary of Defense, was on the board of advisors. And the whole thing was a con. The whole thing was a crock. She claimed that they had this technology, these machines that you could take one tiny pinprick of blood from your finger and analyze it and predict if you have diabetes, if you have all these diseases and do, you know, you go to the doctor and they take blood, they stick the thing in, and they do one test tube after another after another after another. She said, no, no, no, we can get rid of all of that and do just one little drop of blood. And she had, you know, major drug stores, Walmart and I think CVS and Walgreens all like wanting to be a part of this. And the whole thing was a crock. It didn't work. These boxes that were allegedly the machines chewing on it, they didn't do it. And they just kept digging and digging and digging. And so what happened is we just saw the conclusion of the federal trial. So she was charged with criminal fraud, with defrauding people with lying about the results of their technology. And just Basically being a crook. It's not much different than Madoff and a Ponzi scheme. It's raising money and lying to investors and engaging in criminal fraud. There were 11 counts brought against her of different specific items of fraud. And the jury, it was in the Northern District of California. The jury convicted her on four of the counts. The jury acquitted her on four of the counts. So four of the counts they concluded the evidence and this was a multi week, this was a long trial. Four of the counts they said she's not guilty of. So those counts are gone. Four of them they convicted her and then three of the counts they deadlocked. So the jury couldn't agree. Those three counts, there'll likely be a mistrial on those counts. If the jury deadlocks, you don't have a result one way or the other. But the four counts on which she was convicted are serious and potentially the maximum she could be sentenced to is 80 years in prison. Each of those four counts has a statutory maximum of 20 years in prison. So if, if the sentences ran consecutively, if she got the statutory maximum from all four and they were consecutive, it'd be 80 years in prison. That being said, that is a very, very unlikely outcome. It's unlikely that the sentences will be consecutive. And under the sentencing guidelines, I think most of the analysts who have dug into this are predicting a sentence somewhere between one and two years in prison so that she will serve in all likelihood real and meaningful prison time, but not an 80 year sentence. And I gotta say, there's a documentary that's a fabulous documentary, I recommend it, that I've watched and they're making a movie where Jennifer Lawrence is playing her. And I mean it. Holy cow, this stuff is wild. I don't know if Jennifer Lawrence will have a crossbow and shoot Henry Kissinger in a Hunger Games redux, which I think it'd be a much more fun movie if you started, you know, mixing genres. But I'll probably watch the movie too, right?
- [44:42]
Michael Knowles
It's so insane. I read the book that was published by the journalist who actually exposed the fraud from the beginning. I think it's called Bad Blood and it truly is insane. The most insane part is that she knew pretty much from the get go what she was doing. She knew that this did not work and that there was no possibility of this technology being developed. That's the part that's just so unbelievable. It's not like this technology was being developed and it just didn't end up working out. And you know, she, she led people on a little bit further than she should know. She knew from the get go that this was not going to work and she still raised all this money. And like you said, her behavior about Steve Jobs was so sociopathic. You have to wonder if even if she gets a year or two in prison, if this is justice, given what she did. Honestly, I could probably talk about this. I've been following this story for years now. I could probably talk about this for a whole episode. But I do want to get to some questions from the Verdict plus community because we have some really good ones. We have some really good ones. And the first One is from T.M. erickson. Senator T.M. erickson asks what are the top 10 legislative priorities that we should expect from a GOP Congress in 2023?
- [45:45]
Liz Wheeler
Ooh, that is a good question. So some of it depends on will we see a Republican House or House and Senate. And we've talked before. I'll handicap the odds of our taking the house at about 90, 10. I think it's extremely likely. The Senate's more of a coin flip. I think it's about 50, 50. I think it's going to be a really good year. But it's, but it's a bad map. There are a lot more vulnerable Republican seats on the ballot than there are vulnerable Democrat seats. That being said, I think there's a very real possibility. We come into 23 with both a House and Senate. I think the top priorities should be, number one, focusing on jobs, focusing on reducing the burdens on job creators, on getting people back to work. I think the focus should also be on reining in the abuse of power from President Biden. And that means taking on the crisis at the border and securing the border. We ought to be passing bill after bill after bill and forcing Biden to veto him. Forcing Biden to veto common sense legislation that actually responds to the overwhelming priorities of the country. Forcing Biden to veto legislation on the border. Now this actually keys up with a question Michael asked at the beginning of the pod. He said, are the Democrats going to end the filibuster? I don't know. I hope that they don't. If they do and Republicans then win in 2022, we'll be able to pass bill after bill after bill and force Biden either to veto them or sign them. If they don't end the filibuster, the House will be able to pass them and we can go to the Senate and force Democrats either to filibuster them or have Biden veto them. I don't think there is a significant likelihood that we see big, major positive legislation passing in 2023 and 2024 and becoming law, because anything good Biden will veto a major tax cut. Simplifying what I'd like to see is a simple flat tax. Abolish the irs. Well, Biden wants to put tens of millions of dollars more into the IRS and hire thousands of IRS agents to harass and hound families and small businesses. So he's not going to agree with tax simplification, he's not going to agree with border security, he's not going to agree with a lot of common sense legislation. But we ought to tee it up one after the other after the other. We also ought to engage in very real oversight. And so holding hearings on the abuses of power from the Biden administration, particularly because if and when Republicans take the majority, I expect the Biden White House to shift their focus even more so to executive orders and regulations, and so abusing the executive power. And so Congress needs to use our oversight power to rein that in. It's a whole different question. If and when we get a Republican president elected in 2024, when we have a president who can sign legislation into law. But even if we win in November, which I think we're going to, we're still gonna be battling an incredibly partisan and incredibly lawless White House.
- [49:13]
Michael Knowles
And Michael, let me narrow this question for you. So the question was top 10. But as a voter, which obviously is different than an elected official in Congress, as the senator is as a voter, if there's one thing that you want, Republicans, if we do have the majority in both houses, but are in opposition, of course, to the Biden White House, what do you want to see from a Republican controlled Congress?
- [49:34]
Ted Cruz
Well, you know, unfortunately, as, as the senator pointed out, we're just gonna be shut down on a whole lot of things. Even, even if you get a Republican House, even if you get a Republican Senate. So you'd say, first thing, you've gotta stop the insane illegal immigration, which we've talked about on this episode and on many episodes of this podcast. Two million foreign nationals pouring over the border illegally is insane. And you, you cannot plausibly remain a country if you don't even have the basic borders to stop millions of foreigners from illegally entering into your country. But then something that I think you are seeing from some conservatives who understand what time it is and what you're seeing a lot of conservative voters calling for is for Republicans to wield the legitimate political power that they have, whether that means going in and telling schools that they can't teach crazy racial and sexual theories to their kids. Whether this means going in and telling woke corporations that they can't silence Americans, that they can't silence, in some cases, duly elected representatives or even over the past year, the duly elected sitting president of the United States. For a long time there was this idea that the only threat came from big government. And big government does pose a threat. But big corporation poses a threat too. Big culture poses a threat too. Big tech poses a threat too. And so I think that serious conservatives and serious Republicans are willing to go in and actually wield legitimate power so that we don't just cede the whole culture to the left. And I'm not just flattering the host of this show here, but Senator Cruz has done that in the U.S. senate. There have been a handful of governors and a handful of lower level Republican politicians too. But I know that is one area where the voters are really calling for it. And unfortunately, the GOP establishment sometimes seems to not want to actually do anything with the power that the people give them.
- [51:36]
Liz Wheeler
Well, and Michael, let me jump in on that also to say last week we saw a major threshold which is that Twitter banned a sitting member of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now look, you may not agree with her, you may disagree with what she says, but they've already banned the former president of the United States, which is astonishing and an abuse of power. They're now saying a sitting, currently elected member of Congress they're going to silence. And mind you, they're not silencing aoc, who says we all want a date her. They're not silencing Ilhan Omar, who is rabidly anti Israel and spewing far too often hateful sentiments online. They're not silencing represented Tlaib. They're silencing once again, an elected official they disagree with. If you disagree with an elected official, say why they're wrong. Don't abuse your monopoly power to silence them. And I think big Tech is going to get worse and worse and worse. And sadly, I think it's only a matter of time before they come after verdict. And they are going to. The more they get away with silencing people they disagree with. They're moving the Overton window so that it is soon going to be maybe the only people you can listen to. They're willing to ban Trump, they're willing to ban Joe Rogan, they're willing to ban Marjorie Taylor Greene. And it makes you wonder who's next because the more they get away with no consequences, the worse it's gonna get.
- [53:12]
Michael Knowles
That's why I think it's important. The one thing a Republican Congress can do and can do effectively even with a Democrat controlling the White House, is oversight and accountability. And I think the American people, there's not only an appetite for that, it's a necessity. It's a necessity when we have what we're facing in the radical left. So Senator, the next question is from Alex Pinkney. And this is a question, this is a very practical question. It's not a policy question. But because you're a lawyer specifically, Alex asks. I'm considering going to law school here in Minnesota. But they have diversity, equity and inclusion. So I fear they're going to have a contorted view of the Constitution and what our founding fathers believed philosophically. Which law school do you recommend?
- [53:54]
Liz Wheeler
So that's a very good question. I think if you're going in Minnesota, the odds are almost 100% they're going to have a distorted leftist view. But you know, it's not just Minnesota, it's almost every state in the union. The sad state of the legal academy like universities across the country is they're almost overwhelmingly hard left. You know, my general view on colleges, but especially on law school is go to the best school you can get into that in many ways what you're purchasing is a credential. When you go look, it's your responsibility to have a firm foundation to develop, to learn, to study and not just accept propaganda from professors. And that's true at just about any place you go. But I do think, particularly for law school, lawyers are weird. Weird in many respects. But one of the respects that's weird is you'll have a 70 year old lawyer who if you look at their firm bio, it will prominently state where they went to college and law school. Like it's a very odd that doesn't, you know, often as prominent as what they've done for the last 50 years. And you contrast that to say someone in business, you know, Elon Musk. I don't even know where Elon Musk went to school. Who cares? The guy's got a gazillion dollars and has done amazing things in business and he's got obvious results. So, you know, who cares where he went to school? Lawyers. I guess part of it is because many people can't make their own determination of the quality of their services. They rely on proxies instead. You know, if you're CEO of a big company and the company's printing money. That's objective and simple. And if you're not Elizabeth Holmes and engaged in fraud, the numbers are clear and transparent. Lawyers. There's an odd academic snobbery that is bizarre and kind of stupid. But that being said, for a young person thinking about going to law school, I think it makes sense to go to the best school you can get into and then take the time, you know, read Justice Scalia, read Clarence Thomas, read Robert Bork, read conservatives, learn. But you're going to have to go out of the way to learn on your own, the other side of the story, because the professors just about everywhere are a train wreck.
- [56:27]
Michael Knowles
I think that's correct. That's true, sadly for undergraduate, too, that most of the education that happens at a higher education level has to be done independently. That was even true for my undergraduate majoring in political science. Most of what I learned about the founding of our country and political philosophy and the history of the world and as it pertains to politics and as it pertains to our country was based on my own independent study, not necessarily what I was being taught or what I learned in school. So I think that's sound advice. If anybody wants to ask a question for next week's episode, you can do so at verdict with TedCruise.com/ that's verdict with TedCruise.com+.
- [57:07]
Ted Cruz
Thank you to all of our wonderful friends for listening. Thank you to all of our wonderful critics for your sexual frustrations. Until next time, Michael. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [57:27]
Liz Wheeler
This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security pac, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations and candidates across the country. In 2022, jobs, freedom and Security PAC plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.